Arvind Kejriwal to contest Delhi assembly polls: AAP

New Delhi, April 16: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announced that its leader Arvind Kejriwal will contest the Delhi assembly elections scheduled later this year and also revealed the process of selecting candidates for the polls. The AAP aims to position itself as an alternative to either the Congress or the BJP.

An interesting fact about the candidate-selection process is that any resident of Delhi having the support of minimum 100 people can fill the form and submit it to the party by May 5. The forms will be screened afterwards and the final list will be announced in two months. The political affairs committee of the party will interview the selected candidates.

However, the party said it was not yet decided from which constituency Kejriwal will contest the polls. Senior party leader Manish Sisodia, however, said the party workers were quite enthusiastic about Kejriwal contesting the polls. Sisodia also announced the AAP's plan to invite applications and recommendations from the common people for all the 70 constituencies in Delhi.

Sisodia added that the party did not yet decide if any other top leader would contest the polls.

The AAP is particular about the candidates' profile. Anybody who belongs to a political dynasty or is a rebel candidate or has serious allegations of corruption against his/her name will be disqualified from applying as a candidate.

The party will also take into account the police record and public opinion about a particular aspirant to assess his/her character. No person with serious allegations against his/her name will be given tickets, party sources said.

Taking a dig at the political class, Sisodia said the way in which parties like the Congress and the BJP select and choose their candidates in closed rooms encourages political corruption.

The AAP said out of the 875 candidates who were fielded in the last Delhi assembly polls, as many as 91 were tainted. It said the Congress and the BJP had fielded 19 candidates each and some of them had serious charges like murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping against them.